Thom Peart

With the release of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them in 2016, and the upcoming release of Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, it’s safe to say that the magic of Harry Potter has returned to our normal muggle lives. If you’re a big Harry Potter fan, and you enjoy constructing LEGO kits, then you’ll be pleased to learn that LEGO has announced a new range of Harry Potter-themed LEGO sets are set to be released this Summer. Read More

A copy of Aristotle’s Masterpiece Completed In Two Parts, The First Containing the Secrets of Generation from 1720 has been discovered and offers us both a humorous and sobering look at how sex and women were viewed during Georgian times. The book is set to be auctioned at Derbyshire next month. Read More

Meet Sting, a former race dog who now works as a therapy dog at a library in Minnesota as part of a Paws to Read program, where children can improve their reading skills by reading to dogs. Sting has worked there for the past two years but, earlier this month, nobody signed up to read with poor Sting. In order to try and help Sting find a reading partner, his owner, John Muellner, posted a picture of Sting on Facebook and asked if any parents would like their children to come and read with him. Read More

Bookworms who live in the Manchester borough of Trafford will be pleased to learn that the council has decided to abolish late fines for library books, the first council in the UK to do so. In a statement, the Trafford council stated that fines can be “off-putting for customers” and it hopes that this change will encourage more readers to visit their local library. Read More

Those of you who enjoy the adventures of the world’s most famous Spy will be pleased to learn that famed writer Anthony Horowitz is set to publish a new James Bond novel which will serve as a prequel to the first book Casino Royale, and will be an origin story for the notorious secret agent. Read More

The Duluth school district of Minnesota has decided to remove Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird due to the book’s use of racial slurs.

The two books will still be available to read in the school’s libraries but, as of next year, they will be replaced by other books that tackle the same topics in the ninth- and 11th-grade English classes. The news has been announced by the district’s director of curriculum and instruction, Michael Cary. Read More

If you’re planning to get away from it all this Summer, and fancy getting in some early spooks before October rolls around, then you’ll want to check out Eight Ghosts: The English Heritage Book of New Ghost Stories. The book contains eight spooky stories that have been written by eight different authors, each inspired by English Heritage sites.

The authors include the likes of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, Mark Haddon, and author of The Essex Serpent, Sarah Perry. Each author was given an historic site, and challenged with writing a ghost story set within the walls of said site. Locations include York Cold War Bunker, Dover Castle and Housesteads Roman Fort on Hadrian’s Wall. Read More

In 1817, 41-year-old Jane Austen wrote a letter to her eight-year-old niece, Cassandra Esten Austen. The letter is written in code and wishes her niece a happy New Year, reading: “I hsiw uoy a yppah wen raey.” Read More

J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books are among some of the most read and most beloved books of all time. The series shot to fame in the early 2000’s and was further supported by an excellent series of film adaptations. The Harry Potter books have now reached an incredible milestone and have sold over half a billion books worldwide, with the series being translated into over 80 different languages from Latin to Mongolian. Read More